5 Steps To Explode Your Business

Here’s a great strategy that can dramatically change your business. It works best for professional service providers but it can work well for others as well. If you haven’t started down this road before, it can involve a lot of work but you only have to do it once. As soon as you’ve gone through the process once, you can use the same strategy over and over again. And you’ll be positioning yourself as an expert along the way.

First things first. You have to ensure you’re an expert in the field. Does that mean you have to be a PhD in the topic? No, it doesn’t. It just means you have to know enough about the topic to be authoritative. Keep in mind that most people know very little about any one fields and a recent study found that if you read just three books on a particular subject, you’ll effectively become an expert on that topic relative to everyone else.

The next thing you have to do is write a short handbook on the topic. This can be as easy as summarizing the content in the three books you read and putting the same content in your own words and in a condenses document. By doing this, you can forever more refer to yourself as an author and other people will treat you with more respect as a result. I have written two handbooks in the past. One was 28 pages and the other was 34. So these don’t need to be long novels. They just need to demonstrate your expertise.

The process of writing a short handbook does something else too. It structures your thoughts and your understanding of the topic. By being forced to explain the topic to an uneducated reader, you will end up knowing the subject better yourself. And with that understanding in place, you need to massage that content into a 2-hour workshop. Think about the most important points and organize them into a logical order for an audience to hear.

Next up, schedule the event and market it to get a few people in attendance. There are a lot of different ways to market an event like this and it doesn’t need to cost you a lot of money. The important thing is to get 10 or 15 people in attendance. That will give you a sufficient audience to practice delivering the information and getting the questions that naturally come up.

When you’re comfortable with the process, bring a microphone and record an event live. You can download Audacity for free and the microphone will cost $50 or less. Then, you’ll get the exposure from the workshop as usual but you’ll get an information product to boot. The importance of this is significant. A lot of speaking engagements require the speaker to have an information product to sell. It also builds more credibility. And it allows you to make some money even though you’re providing the workshops for free.

This 5-step strategy is a great way to position yourself as an expert within your field and leverage that position to gain new clients or partners. And once you’ve gone through the process once, you’ll have the tools forever more and can use them as often as possible without further efforts.

Tactical Execution has made a business out of helping others achieve their goals. The information in this article is just the tip of the iceberg and I encourage you to visit the website to take advantage of the resources available there.

Is Your Reception Letting Your Business Down?

Visiting a business for the first time a potential client's first point of call is the reception. If the reception desk is not inviting or worse still cluttered and untidy, then your potential customer might believe that the whole business is disorganized!

As the first point of contact the receptions desk should reflect the ethos and identity of your business. It is often your first chance to impress a potential customer or a future supplier.

Businesses should spend just as much time and effort on their reception as they do on their logos, brochures and website. Remember to try and coordinate the furniture elsewhere so that the offices and boardroom also fit in with your receptions design.

If you use bright and bold colors for your reception, it might signify that your company is forward thinking, embraces technology and likes to portray a cool & innovative image.

If you have a more traditional reception it could signify that your business is well established and respected in the community. It can signify conservatism and generate respect from your visitors.

On the outside it should be inviting, welcoming and friendly. Your visitor should be drawn to it and feel relaxed approaching it.

On the inside it should function well as a work station. It must have enough desk and drawer space so that the receptionist can stay organized and uncluttered. If the receptionist is comfortable s/he is much more likely to greet your visitors with a smile.

Phones on the desk should be cordless so that they can be passed to a visitor without worrying about wires. They can then make an important call whilst waiting for their appointment or speak to the person they have come to see.

There must be comfortable seating preferably with arm rests if your visitors are expected to wait for any amount of time. Bear in mind that in this day and age you might also need to provide power sockets so that they have someplace to plug their laptops.

A coffee and tea vending machine is ideal for a busy reception and can make the life of a receptionist a lot easier. A nice coffee table where you can also leave your company brochure finishes of the reception.

The reception is often the first place where real impressions are created and the tone is set for any business that might take place. Is your business giving the right impression to first time visitors?

Will Your Business Be A Victim Of Identity Theft?

Identity theft is the world's fastest growing crime. In the US alone, there are 27,000 identity theft victims daily. It's likely that a high number of these victims include businesses of all sizes.

If Microsoft or Wal-Mart loses customer data to identity thieves, they simply pass the problem onto their extensive legal teams and security experts. But what if your small business gets caught up in some crook's identity scheme?

The consequences can be devastating. The average victim of identity theft spends 1,600 hours sorting out all the problems and confusion. Losses can quickly mount into the thousands of dollars.

To make matters even worse, the federal government demands you keep all your customer and employee information safe from thieves. If it's stolen, you can be liable for big fines and harsh penalties.

If all this makes you just a little nervous, I can't say I blame you. This is the fastest growing crime in history, and touches almost everyone. It could easily devastate your business in a most expensive and public way -- and that's something to worry about.

Keep in mind as soon as it becomes known your customer or employee information was stolen, creditors and customers will start to have second thoughts about doing business with you. This trend has sadly been borne out time and time again.

Fortunately there are some solid, positive answers appearing. Recently one of America's top legal service providers teamed up with one of the world's most respected security companies. The result is a very inexpensive service that monitors credit reports 27/7 to catch criminals in the process of committing a crime.

If suspicious activity appears on a credit report, the alarms are sounded immediately. That can quickly limit and stop unwanted activity.

Furthermore, you'll need legal help. A qualified team of experienced lawyers can help you sort through even the most daunting identity theft problems.

And while we're talking about lawyers, don't skimp on legal representation when dealing with contracts, problem customers, and problem suppliers. The biggest companies and richest individuals don't make a move without first consulting their attorney -- you shouldn't either. One of the reason so many small businesses fail is they can't or won't afford legal help.

Again, this much-needed legal representation is now available for just a few dollars per month. In the past, a business would keep a legal firm on retainer for thousands per month. Because most people don't need a lawyer all that often, top attorneys found they could charge very little per month, help those who asked for help, and still come out ahead. It's a win-win for both lawyers and the business owners who need them.

SEO - Can You Start An SEO Business For Free

Many Internet gurus will lead you to believe that you can make a ton of money as an SEO marketer without making any initial investment into it as a business. This is completely false. Although it is true that you can write a blog strewn with affiliates on a free site, or make yourself up a fancy online business card on a build it yourself website you are probably not going to make much money unless you have a little bit of money to invest in a high quality website with a decent domain name.

Many gurus who write books about this stuff will tell you that you can optimize your site for free by using certain keywords to describe your site etc. This is simply not true. In fact the trend in marketing is for the search engines to start penalizing sites that have too many keywords repeated throughout the main body of the page. This is why you need to be quite clever about your SEO marketing.

The reason is that it is completely impossible to make money on the Internet without an investment is because you must count your time as an investment. Surely your time is worth something and if you don’t value it, who will? Even if you have arranged not to pay for anything online, you need to pay yourself something. So if you pay yourself ten bucks per 500 word SEO article and write eight a day then you need to factor in the cost of your time as eighty bucks a day.

You can make money on the Internet as a SEO marketer without a big investment, but you will not make a six-figure income! You are probably looking in the below $5,000.00 region in that case. The intelligent thing to then do is invest part of that $5,000 back into your SEO business.

Staying Sane While Starting A Home Business

Starting a new business can be a harried experience. There are a myriad of decisions to be made, the budget needs stretched, the new secretary quits before the end of the first week: the struggles are endless. When starting a business from your home, you can add a slew of unique challenges to the list. Being aware of the potential pitfalls, and preparing for them can provide a way of preserving your sanity.

Friends and family members frequently assume that if you are home, you are available. Nothing can set your work back hours, faster than an unplanned visit from your mother. Setting clear boundaries regarding your schedule and availability for phone calls and visits can prevent misunderstandings early on in the life of your business.

If you are choosing to keep your small children home with you while you work, that carefully planned schedule can quickly become fodder for your three year old. Getting up early is often the best way to increase your productivity while those little angels are still slumbering away.

Having a contingency plan for days when the work load requires more attention than usual is an excellent way to head off disasters before they happen. Find local babysitters who are willing to come to your home to help out when needed. Recruit friends and family to provide occasional entertainment for short periods of time to allow you to work without interruptions. Anything that helps you keep focused is a good investment in preserving your sanity.

Running a business from your home has a few perks, especially at tax time. Consulting with a tax expert or accountant early on will arm you with the knowledge necessary to save you time and money when filing your first year’s business taxes.

Finding service providers that are both competent and trustworthy is a lesson in perseverance. The business directories, internet advertisements and even newspaper ads are clogged with scams and incapable providers. Seeking the advice of a seasoned home business veteran can be your salvation. Word of mouth will reveal strengths and problems with service providers.

If you find that you have chosen poorly and end up with a full sized, ten year old copier in your den instead of that sleek, all-in-one model with all the bells and whistles that you paid for, don’t despair. Don’t back down either. You can explain your dissatisfaction firmly and politely while explaining that the services were not acceptable. If after bringing the blunder to the business’ attention, you are still left feeling cold, you can report the offender to the Better Business Bureau: and call for legal advice.

Using good old common sense, a little street smarts and a lot of charm and honesty will help your achieve your business goals, while allowing you to keep your sanity and your home life intact.

Income Opportunity Home Based Business

In my recent articles titled Internet Home Based Business and Online Home Based business: I covered many aspects of creating, marketing and the real time modifications that need to be made on a regular basis. Owning your own online website is a very attractive and obtainable goal for many web surfers. This article will give you some insight into how to easily get you own online business started quickly.

One can see the demand by the observing the key words searched for on a daily basis such as income opportunity home based business, home Internet based business opportunity, work at home based business opportunity, home based mlm, business opportunity, free home based business, and starting a home based business. This just a few of the thousands of searches made daily.

The Internet is an excellent vehicle for many people to us in achieving their business goals. What better way is there to reach millions of people on a regular basis? The startup cost for an online business is minimal. Where else could you get a business that offers such margins and cost so little and reach millions of people? Many people are achieving financial freedom utilizing the Internet. You have to be willing to do a lot of research to find the best online business for your particular skill sets. You also have to sift through the hundreds of programs so that you can narrow down the choices to the best of the best. Not the scam of the scam or worst of the worst.

My suggestion is to either use a website that has researched and eliminated the companies that will only waste both time and money or spend many hours doing the research yourself. I cannot tell you how important the research is. It is mandatory. While I and others offer many different types of home based business and work at home opportunities I am focusing today on a Online Web Site Business.

Once you have selected a home-based business that you wish to start you will need to look at the following areas:

1. Web Site creation (If you are going to have an online website)

2. Companies, Affiliates and various offers for your customers.

3. Marketing your website (How will you get people to visit to your site?).

4. The ability to change your website in a real time mode.

What I realized is that I did not have to be the creator of the business system. I decided to look for an online business system that would encompass the website creation, Have a broad range of affiliate companies to start off with, step-by-step guidance on how to market my website, rules and guidelines on (PPC) advertising and I wanted to have total control of my business and the ability to modify it when necessary. After much research on the Internet I was able to find a proven system that would fast track my online business.

In following a proven system I figured my chances for success would go up and I could take the saved time and put it toward making money faster. It worked for me and as long as you follow the same proven system I think it will for you too. Please feel free to read more of this article by visiting my link in the resource box below. I always enjoy getting emails pertaining to my articles or my site. Your feedback is important to me.

Work At A Home Based Business Opportunity Skill Set

It is common knowledge that you need to work at home based business opportunity success the same way that you need to work hard to achieve success – both personal and financial – from the average nine to five job. Unfortunately, it appears as though it sometimes gets lost in the whirlwind of enthusiasm that the skill sets required to realize the success from the home business and the day job are entirely different. Some might even say that in some cases the skills required are diametrically opposed from one another. To help you work at home based business opportunity success while at the same time give you an insight into the skills that are required to prevent failure, here is a quick list of the four most important proficiencies.

1. You must be a self starter. When you work at a home based business opportunity, you are in charge. You cannot rely on anyone else to tell you to get started, to get to work, to set and meet a deadline, to work through your lunch to accomplish a number of tasks before the end of the day, to work overtime after the kids are in bed to get more done, or to cancel your day off because you need to get a vital aspect of the work done. At a regular job, you will be told by a supervisor when extra hours are available for work, when vacation requests will not be granted, and when a special project requires an “all hands on deck” approach which the company rewards with a catered buffet for everyone who commits to come in on their days off.

2. You should not be a team player. In a startling reversal of the tired adage that requires everyone in a corporation to be a team member and look out for the good of the company or the department, as a person who is busy with work at a home based business opportunity, you are number one. This means you are responsible for everything and your way is the only way. The odds are good that nobody will look out for your benefit, and you will need to be mindful of it yourself. Great customer service is up to you to deliver, hard lined collection of funds is your department, and dealing efficiently with customer complaints and generating goodwill in the community for your business is your job.

3. Recognize personal shortfalls and correct them immediately. If you find that you are not as organized as you should be, you will need to burn the midnight oil and take an online class or course to find a way to become more organized and then implement it. At a regular job this might translate into a seminar your boss may pay for and send you to, and then will most likely end up in your taking some of the suggestions and adapting them to your work environment. In your home business it means adapting your way of doing business to a correct way of being organized.

Last but not least, the most overlooked skill when you work at home based business opportunity success is your unwavering commitment to success. This means that you can look past failure, rejection, and mistakes and instead keep trotting forward, always looking toward the ultimate success – even though there will nobody there to cheer you on. At a job, you will have a boss who will encourage you, a concerned coworker who might write you a nice card and put it on your desk, or a friend who will call to encourage you. Not when you are on your own.

The Nine Principles of Business War

How you can maximize and retain the best and the brightest

Did you know that up to 38% of your managers, supervisors, and team leaders are about to leave? Monster (the premiere online job search company) has seen a 44% increase in new resume postings in the first quarter of 2004. In particular, "confidential" postings from job-seekers hiding the search from their bosses are up 13%.

Do you know who they are?

The Problem

Exit interviews by JWT Specialized Communication show that manager - employee relationships and weak communications are the top reasons for voluntary departure. When there is a gap in alignment between employees, supervisors, and the corporation, you will experience a rise in costs, lowered shareholder value, and increased turnover.
CEOs tell us:

o I'm concerned about losing good people.

o I don't have the time to mentor.

o My key talent is getting burned out.

o How can I help my key talent prepare for an uncertain future?

o What is the benefit of ensuring the personal success of my employees?


Through McNerney's leadership, 3M has certainly become a company that grows. Just imagine what you and your company could accomplish if your key talent knew what their unique strengths, core values, and lifetime goals were!
Are your employees' goals and strengths aligned with the corporation? Do you know what their goals and strengths are?

Consequences of Inaction

James McNerney and 3M are on to something here. By not addressing the personal growth of your employees, the consequences could be:

o People may "resign" but not quit

o If you do not recruit your employees continuously, someone else will

o You will lose the excitement of your employees' first days on the job

o Potential loss of market reputation

o Loss of shareholder value!

So how can you eliminate unwanted turnover and engage your key talent?

The Roadmap to Domination

True success relies on a clear path, consistency, and innovation. And the roadmap to success can come from unusual-and sometimes forgotten-sources. Take the field manual below, for example.

So what does an army field manual have to do with anything, you ask? Plenty. Business is war. It is a battle to reach your objectives. It is a battle to keep your key talent from leaving and "upgrading" your competitors. Above all, it is a battle to dominate your competition.
We have taken this old field manual and put it in a fresh perspective for the modern business leader.

The Nine Principles of Business War

Principle One: Objective

Direct all actions towards a clearly defined, decisive, and attainable objective.
Real leadership begins at the beginning. To engage your employees, you must communicate precisely what the objectives are. This is a war you cannot win alone.

Principle Two: Take the Offensive

Seize, retain, and exploit the initiative.
Once you have determined your objectives (and you have clearly communicated them to your employees), you will have a ready team to seize the opportunities that arise in your market.

Principle Three: Be Effective

Identify your priorities and concentrate minimum essential resources to lower priorities.
For this you must identify your priorities and establish the details of your objectives. By minimum essential resources we mean that the focus of time and money must be on the primary objectives without neglecting the small details and lower priorities.

Principle Four: Be Efficient

Determine the most efficient use of your employees.
This is where personal growth comes into play. To know precisely who to assign to what, you need a system to determine the unique strengths and goals of your employees.. Determine your innovators, brainstormers, organizers, communicators-find the employees with the strengths to match each objective.

Principle Five: Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome

Place your competitors in a position of disadvantage through a flexible application of your resources.
With the right person in the right place, your company will be able to maximize each and every opportunity. Take the time to communicate the company's objectives and to discover the strengths and goals of your employees. By doing this, you will have shown them that you believe in them, and they will be engaged when and where you need them.

Principle Six: Unity of Leadership

For every challenge and objective, ensure synergy among all leadership.
In essence, this means two things: (1) You now know exactly who should be in a position of leadership for each objective and (2) you communicate your collective goals throughout the company. In one word, alignment. By engaging your employees through invested and unified leadership, you can align your employees with the objectives and goals of the company.

Principle Seven: Retain the Best and Maximize the Rest


Never permit the competition to acquire an unexpected advantage.
If you do not actively recruit your key talent, somebody else will. By addressing the personal growth of your employees, the greenest grass will be in your company. Knowing the unique strengths and goals of your employees has another benefit-you will have a clearer picture of those employees who are actively disengaged (or whose strengths are not matched to their job). The real benefit from this will be reduced unwanted turnover, where the costs can add up to more than 150% of the former employee's salary.

Principle Eight: Innovate

Strike at a time or place, or in a manner, for which the competition is unprepared.
This principle cannot be properly done if you do not know the unique strengths of your key talent. With the alignment of strength to action, you can maximize the hidden opportunities that arise in your market.

Principle Nine: Simplicity

Prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and clear, concise orders to ensure thorough understanding.
By aligning your employees' goals to the company's goals, they will be engaged and ready to act. You must communicate clearly and constantly the mission, values, and objectives of your company.
How can you put all of this into action?
Dominating the market does not come easily. You need a system to determine the unique strengths of your employees and address their personal growth. This insight will let you match ability with action. Are your innovators organizing? Are your organizers innovating? "The right tool for the right job" isn't just for carpenters and mechanics.
Engage your workforce. Help them achieve personal success. This will transform your company into a highly profitable and aligned organization.

Langston began his career in the international business arena almost 30 years ago, he had two objectives:

1) Become a successful global leader and
2) Maximize the potential of all those he came into contact with.

While running operations in excess of $1.2 Billion and 8,000 employees, he learned that without a process and technology, these two goals often worked against each other. He created 100daystosuccess to provide Life, Personal and Business coaches and Executives with a proven Roadmap which will help their clients Discover, Determine and Direct their futures while driving an excellent return on investment (ROI).

Successful Home Businesses – A Second Income from Homes

Successful Home Businesses – A Second Income from Homes: The dilemma whether your legitimate home based businesses will be a success or not can be nerve wrecking. So evaluate all aspects of your stay at home business solution before you actually start a home business. Examine the pros and cons of money making home business ; especially it’s financial and commercial aspects before starting one. The reason is most people lose money in their home based business ventures. The market is teeming with hundreds of ideas of stay at home business. Every single day new schemes come into the market calling them money making home business opportunity. Sadly, most of the so-called successful home businesses are scams.  

The right money making home business: If you are planning to start home based business, choose a stay at home business that interests you. If you are pursuing it just for kicks, sooner or later you are going to fail in legitimate home based businesses. Hence choosing the right kind of money making home business can decide whether you will be successful or not. So do your research and then decide on which of the successful home businesses suit you.  

Speculate all your issues minutely: Do not leave your stay at home business solution midway and change to a stable but permanent job This is the mistake most people in legitimate home based businesses do. Once you start home based business, try to understand the nitty gritties of it. Also don’t expect that you will become successful within a few days of starting your work from home business . So stays put & work hard at your work towards making your home based businesses a grand success.  

Choose the Right Partner: Successful home businesses will bring you rewarding results in the due course of time. At the beginning, there will be certain difficulties associated with your work at home business solution which will frustrate you. Your mental and physical stress will hinder you to resolve these issues. The best solution to such a situation is a partner or a mentor who will be at your side and guide you through the difficult times.

Make failures your strength : Once you decide on a stay at home business, make sure you allocate the resources in a planned way. And in spite of everything, you keep in your mind is whether the legitimate home based businesses will actually make money or not?

There are chances of failure in every business, and work in home businesses are no exception. That doesn’t mean that you should give up all your efforts and leave everything to destiny. But if any unfavorable situation has evolved, face it bravely with confidence. S tart a home business only if you are comfortable with the idea. If your financial situation doesn’t permit you to take risks then it is better to take up the idea of work at home business solution at a later time.

Remember, success of your business depends on the way you project your business to the world. The success or failure in home businesses depends on the degree of confidence you have in your home business and also on your own abilities.

5 Low Cost High Profit Businesses You Can Start From Home While Working In Your Pajamas

There are two type of people in the world. Those who see the glass half empty and those who see it half full. This experience was heightened for me when I had lunch with an old colleague from work and he began to complain about how only rich people could start a business. I thought he was joking.

As I sat and listened he ranted for almost ten minutes giving all the reasons he could not start his own business and get out of the rat race. He talked about the high cost of start ups,
franchising and real estate development. When he finally came up for air I decided to ask simply ask him one question. Mark, “Have you every asked yourself what kind of low cost businesses with high profit margins are out there?”

He looked like he had been run over by a truck. I went on to say, “You are just asking the wrong question.” He sat for a minute and said, “Ok, if you’re so smart give me some ideas.” I said, “Great. Oh and by the way let's make it fun and focus on the ones you can work from home in your pajamas.”

Here are the 5 low cost high profit businesses I shared with Mark.

1. Internet Marketing: Do you have a computer in your home? If so you could be sitting on a gold mine. People use the internet to do all types of things. From a multimillion dollar wire jewelry making enterprise to a young kid from Long Beach California who created his empire teaching people how to play music by ear. Everyday people are getting on the internet and pursuing their own dot com fortune.

2. Tele-seminars: If you not a very technical person one of the
best strategies is tele-seminars. With simply a telephone and a
conference call line for your guest to call in on you can offer
a class or seminar. You can either use it as a lead generator or you can sell your product or service from the seminar itself. An additional product can come from recording the class. Once you record the class it can become an instant product you can create passive income from.

3. Joint Ventures: If you like the idea of not needing a product or money of your own than the idea of joint venturing could be for you. This business is simply the art of the deal. You are paid in direct proportion to your ability to bring together two parties who would not otherwise know each other outside of your introduction.

For example if you combine company A’s products, knowledge,
resources and partner it with company B’s client list you get to share in the profits. And it would not cost you one cent.

4. Affiliate Marketing: What if someone else did most of the work but you got to share in the profit pie? Well, that is
what affiliate marketing is all about. There are thousands of
products ranging from digital down loads, books,seminars not to
mention hard products like computers, cell phones and other
techie stuff. Your job is to find the products that your market is interested in and when you sell something you get a percentage of the sale. You can do this without having any inventory or the overhead of a traditional business.

5. Information Products: This is one of the most highly lucrative low cost businesses you can get into. If you have specialized knowledge or can do you can research and reporton it you can create products that are highly profitable. For example, one of the fastest ways to success is to interview experts in a high demand niche market.

Once you have interviewed these experts you can take the information and create several different products from the one interview. Some of the things you can do is sell the recording itself, sell the transcript of the call, use some of the content create an e-book or report or take several of the interviews and put them together for an expert tape series.

6. Network Marketing/MLM: I have always been a fan of network
marketing because the business model is as much about self
development as it is building a business. The premise is you find a company that you are passionate about the product, has a proven system and strong team leadership. Most of these companies are low cost of entry. And you build your empire leveraging the efforts of many.

Some people incorrectly believe you are going to get rich off the back of someone else. Not true. The very core of network marketing is built on the fact that you get paid in direct proportion of your ability to recruit, train, inspire, support and lead a voluntary group of people. For those who can do this the rewards are great.

7. EBay: I was recently introduced to the EBay craze by someone
who in the beginning had no money so he decided to sell a tape set a friend had created. This product was a compilation of interviews with successful entrepreneurs. Their first sale was $37.00 and they went on to build multi-million dollar empire. EBay is one of the quickest ways to get to a profit. You can take things that you have in your garage today and sell them on EBay tomorrow. Remember one mans junk is another mans treasure.

At the end of the lunch something interesting happened. My friend Mark was starting to see the glass half full. How about you? Are you looking for a business you can start without breaking the bank? The above five businesses are just a few ideas to jump start your thought process. However, make no mistake you can start a low cost high profit business and enjoy it while lounging in your pajamas.